Casting: In terms pf raw casting this reel is a very good
performer as we conducted a few distance tests in the field and were not
disappointed. For striper fishing, I tossed everything from the 100 sized Lucky
Craft pointers to heavier baits like large pencil poppers and some swimbaits. I
fished mostly with 50lb braid and found this reel can cast a mile when you
really want to chuck the lure out to that distant spot in open water.

This reel
casts great especially with heavier lures. Also notice the nice Power Handle on
the Inshore which comes with the reel

Rockcod and lingcod
fishing calls for more straight down vertical jigging but the more experienced
anglers like to cast and retrieve especially on those days where there isn’t a
drift. Casting jigheads and irons with this reel is very smooth and, as
expected, distance is not an issue with these heavy baits even on windy days.

A centrifugal
brake system is used on the Inshore

Retrieve:
Thanks to high quality stainless steel HPCR bearings and tight component
tolerances, the Revo Inshore is not just smooth but it is also extremely
powerful. Abu Garcia provides anglers with two types of handles and while this
increases their overall manufacturing costs it’s a very nice bonus for the
consumer needing that added bit of flexibility.

Retrieves are
powerful and smooth

The Extended Throw handle
is the more compact of the two stock handles and is very useful as an “everyday”
kind of handle. I used that setup to target Fall running Delta stripers and
largemouth bass, tossing anything from jerkbaits to large swimbaits. To gain
another outside perspective on the reel we put the Revo Inshore in the hands of
anglers like our contributing editor MP, who had been fishing with the Daiwa
Coastal for all his crossover applications for over a year. He remarked that the
reel was both smoother and sported what appeared to be a more solid feel and
construction that was noticeable on both cast and retrieve than the Coastal. The
option for the second handle for jigging put the reel over the top in his book.

Contributing TT
Editor MP still fishes and field tests with us. Here he landed this nice Striped
Bass on the California Delta with the Revo Inshore while comparing it to the
Daiwa Coastal. Needless to say he has already bought one since testing ours

The inclusion of the Power
Handle is definitely a winner in my book as well. When more power is needed switch over
to this handle and gain enough strength to haul in large game fish like that
sailfish landed in Malaysia using the Abu Garcia Revo Inshore. Locally, I put
the Inshore up against large lingcod and various types of rockfish jigging in
waters as deep as 170 feet. When hooking fish this deep, the Power Handle
delivers enough torque to battle these hard fighters and pullers all the way up.
Thanks to the Revo Inshore with the Power Handle installed, I was able to hook,
battle, and land several Lingcod up to 25 pounds and Vermilions up to 10 pounds
during our field trials on the Pacific.

Drag:
Not much to be said here because the Carbon Matrix drag on the Revo Inshore is
the same as the Revo STX that we reviewed last year. Again in the lab we were
able to produce a hefty 24 pounds of drag pressure from these carbon fiber
washers and throughout the range it’s silky smooth. In the field, fine tuning
adjustments are enhanced by the clicking drag star and can make all the
difference between landing a fish and losing it especially when you have
something like a big striped bass at the end of the line bending your rod over
double time and you need to relieve some pressure from the rod and let the drag
do what it is designed to do.

The Revo
Inshore has the same drag system as the Revo STX, both producing a smooth and
strong 24 pound of drag pressure